Google gets you info by pointing camera at it

18 Mai 2017

All of the updates to Google Home are by default also new features coming to the Google Assistant and the devices it's compatible with. There's no immediate word on when the feature will be launching though. At Google's I/O developer conference in San Francisco, Google announced improvements across the Assistant platform on smartphones, Google's eponymous Google Home smart speaker, and more. It can also recognize objects like flowers.

AI projects being worked on by the company include teaching neural networks to create better neural networks, better medical diagnoses, DNA sequencing and more. Google Lens will initially be rolled out to Google Assistant and Google Photos in the coming weeks. Google is adding a way to type questions with a new keyboard option on all its apps.

One example of such an app is YouTube Go. We also will see Spanish, Italian, and Korean within the near future. The first step of any journey is the hardest, they say. For instance, Huffman used Assistant to take a photo of a band's name at a live music venue.

Next up, the little speaker will gain something called "proactive assistance". Now, you can text message the Assistant about upcoming calendar appointments, nearby restaurants, and more, making for a more comfortable experience in public places like elevators and crowded train stations, Google said.

Unfortunately, it sounds like this feature is only coming to the USA and Canada for now, so everyone else will have to wait on this one. But it will still be able to complete a number of productivity-related tasks.

These days, it's not unusual to find tech giants and their plucky startup rivals copying each other's tools and features - sometimes improving on them and sometimes just playing catch-up. If wrangling half-baked software isn't your bag, check out Greenbot's guide to the best new Android O features-or try to parse all the features listed to comprise the massive O in the image at the top of this page. When your friends receive them, Google Photos will also remind them to add their pics, too.

One potentially unsettling new feature in Photos will let you automatically share some or all of your photos with other people. As of now, you can only buy one in the U.S. and United Kingdom, so that's quite the expansion.

Google says new tools will encourage sharing of photos that you might have meant to share - but forgot. "Now, we use machine learning to continuously comb apps uploaded to [Google] Play, flagging potentially harmful apps". Or, if you don't want them poking around your pics from the last decade, only share snaps from a specific date and later.

Then, the Android O will also have something called Autofill with Google, which is very similar to what Google does on your desktop. Another neat feature is Google Play Protect, which scans apps for threats. They will be able to opt-out of the program at any time but may have to wipe their device before rolling back to a stable version of Android.

As part of today's Google I/O keynote address, the company officially announced Android Go. Go is essentially a lightweight, baby version of Android that works on devices with ultra-budget specs.

A survey by analytics company VoiceLabs projects that Google Home and Amazon Echo will together sell 23 million units this year, with more sales going to Amazon because it has a two-year head start and boasts significantly more apps than Home.